41st millennium, in which vast armies do battle. Humble guardsmen clash with Chaos Marines, mighty Titans do battle, and aircraft scream overhead.
Epic was designed
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to be a tactically challenging wargame, and by that I mean that it is designed with
the same ethos as a ‘historical’ wargame system like DBM.
Epic is a ‘simulation’ style wargame,
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rather than a high-fantasy wargame like Warhammer 40,000, indeed in many respects it conforms more closely to the rules of the 41st millennium setting than
its 28mm scale counterpart.
let’s have some history
The world was first introduced to Epic in 1988 through the Adeptus Titanicus game system. This was a game featuring giant robots (Titans) that battled each other.
There were two factions (Imperial & Chaos) and they were fighting something called the
‘Horus Heresy’.
It was awesome.
As well as the giant robots, Games Workshop also produced some small space marine models in metal, for use as objective markers and the like. In an almost offhand manner, these 6mm tall Marines were given some rules that allowed them to skirmish against each other whilst the Titans did the real Specialist Game Focus : EPIC
foCUS oN EPIC.
With its roots in Games Workshop’s dim and distant past, Epic is a game that has stood the test of time. Ben Skinner investigates the history of this truly Epic game
The first Epic Space Marines proved very popular.
fighting overhead. However, gamers soon started to collect whole armies of these tiny Marines and fight battles with only one or two Titans, and whole swathes of infantry.
That was awesome.
So awesome, in fact, that Games Workshop decided to make a complementary game system that was purpose-designed for infantry/tank battles. It was called Epic:
Space Marine, and it was released in 1989.
The second edition of Epic: Space Marine was released five years later in 1994, and officially transplanted the Epic setting from the Horus Heresy to the 41st millennium. The starter boxed set came with Marines, Eldar, Orks, tanks for all three races, and a Mars Pattern Warlord Titan. Again, awesome.
Towards the end of the second edition, the
Titan forces received reinforcements in the form of the infamous Imperator configuration Emperor Class Titan, and the Ork Mega-Gargant. They were ridiculously awesome, even if they were invariably painted in bright primary colours (Veteran Gamers will remember this time as ‘The Red Period’).
And so, in 1997, Games Workshop released its third edition of Epic (This time known as Epic 40,000). Despite being the best looking Epic to date, it was not awesome.
lets see what went wronG with epic 40,000
I’m going to be controversial here ; Honestly, Games Workshop aimed too high, moved too quick, and confused the hell out of a lot of gamers. Epic 40,000 was the most balanced and most tactically challenging wargame that Games Workshop had produced up until that date... but the majority of Games The box art from the 2nd edition
starter set, which placed Titans in the background (Literally) and placed emphasis on tanks and infantry.
The contents of the Epic 40,000 starter set blew previous editions of Epic out of the water, with cool terrain and a huge variety of models, but the rule system failed to catch the imagination of the gaming public.
Specialist Game Focus : EPIC
Workshop’s customers aren’t interested in a tactically challenging wargame, they want a game where their Space Marine commander runs up the field and punches Orkz in the face with a clenched fist the size of a microwave (There’s nothing wrong with that of course, such things are awesome!).
Epic 40,000 threw out the thousands of special rules and wacky game effects of 2nd edition, and replaced it with a streamlined, tactically challenging gaming experience.
Epic 40,000 had a stunning array of new miniatures produced to support it, both plastic and metals were amongst the best models Games Workshop has ever produced. The MkII Land Raider was first designed for Epic 40,000. The Lucius Pattern Warlord Titan was first designed for Epic 40,000. The modern design of Thunderhawk gunship... oh you get the idea!; Regardless of its failure to thrive, without Epic:40,000, Warhammer 40,000 wouldn’t be the game that it is today.
Epic 40,000 was a simulation style wargame, marketed to a customer base who were (And still are) largely more interested in having a straightforward gaming experience (Heck, most GW customers are only just discovering the world of wargaming, and it’ll be quite a few years before they branch out and try other, more challenging, gaming styles).
Epic 40,000 was a real gamble on Games Workshop’s part, and Epic 40,000 was, unfortunately, a dismal failure.
Sales tanked, the rules were widely derided as ‘too abstract’ by the fanbase, and within a year the entire game line was withdrawn from sale; Epic had gone from a Core Game System to a Nothing in under a year.
And so (With a dramatic flourish) began the great Dark Age of Epic, and it wasn’t until 2004 that Epic was sold again, this time under the name of Epic : Armageddon.
The ruleset has been re-written from the ground up, and Epic: Armageddon turned out to be a deft mix of Epic 40,000’s tactical challenge, and Epic: Space Marine’s flavour and complexity of detail.
So, with that dual heritage in mind, is Epic’s 4th edition awesome, or a failure?
let’s look at the Game
When you play a game of Epic, you’ll find that there are 5 victory points available. You need at least two points to claim a win (And of course you need to be claiming more victory objectives than your enemy!):
- Capture an objective marker placed on the enemy’s board edge.
- Capture two objective markers in the enemy’s table half.
- Capture three objective markers in your
own table half.
- Make sure there are no enemy formations in your table half.
- Kill your opponent’s most expensive (Points, not pounds) formation.
So, 4 out of 5 of the victory conditions have nothing to do with killing your opponent’s army... Epic is all about capturing and defending territory, as represented by objective markers (There are 3 in each table half, one of which must be placed on a board edge). That’s awesome, in my opinion;
When I want some fun, I play Warhammer 40,000, but when I want to come away from the tabletop with a headache, I play Epic;
Bearing in mind capturing all those different types of objective combinations whilst fighting your opponent at the same time is a real challenge!
Hmmm, I could go on like this with an in-depth analysis all day... how about I save you and me some time and bullet-point some of Epic’s major features?
let’s see...
- A Modern turn sequence
Players activate formations (Composed of infantry squads, tanks or Titans, etc) in turn, so the action flows back and forth between the players in a manner more similar to Chess than Warhammer 40k’s I-Go-U-Go system;
You’ll never be shooting for twenty minutes, then taking armor saves for twenty minutes, because the initiative sequence flows back
“Sales tanked...the entire game line was withdrawn from sale”
Specialist Game Focus : EPIC
and forth between the players.
- A unique and intuitive morale system Using ‘Blast Markers’ instead of ‘Leadership Tests’, the more Blast Markers a formation has, the more its Morale is shaken. Take too many blast markers too quickly and the formation becomes broken, easy eh?
- Complex gameplay
Many wargames are Complicated, but few are Complex.
- Simple rules
Many wargames have complicated rules, few genuinely need them.
- Vast armies
See the boxout for my typical standard-sized Imperial Guard army list:
Very roughly, that’s an army that would be eight or nine thousands points in Warhammer 40k.
To put it another way, a standard game of Epic is at 3000pts, and the entire Epic Deathwing (100 Terminators) is 1625pts. A Warlord Titan is 850pts, and a Chimera is 25pts. Yes you can fit the entire Deathwing into a game of Epic and take a Warlord Titan too, and still have 525pts left over to spend on other formations, or maybe add Librarians and Chaplains etc to your Terminators....
- Razor-sharp balance
It is nigh-impossible to write a ‘Beardy’ army
list in Epic... the game system is so balanced that games are decided by the Tactics you and your opponent use
(Modified somewhat by the dice!) not by the army list you bring to the table.
- Varying movement speeds.
Not just different movement speeds for
different units (Although that does exist, Tactical Marines move at 15cm per move, whilst Land Raiders move 25cm and Rhinos move 30cm...), but also different types of movement style, so that you can move a formation once and shoot, or move it twice and shoot with a -1 modifier to-hit, or not move at all and receive a +1 modifier to-hit.
- Overwatch Overwatch is cool.
- A thriving Tournament Scene.
If you live in the UK, there are ~15 Epic Tournaments per year, most near Nottingham but some down South too, so if you’re into Tournaments you’ll find that the best of the best are more than willing to show you how to play the game.
- The rulebook is free.
You can download the rulebook for free from the Specialist Games section of the Games Workshop website.
- Tiny, tiny tanks.
Standard Guard 3000pt List 1 Baneblade SHT
1 Leman Russ Vanquisher Tank
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1 Hydra Anti-Aircraft Flak Tank
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2 Thunderbolt Fighter Aircraft
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1 Warhound Titan
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3 Hellhound Tanks
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40 Storm Troopers
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130 Guardsmen (Including a few
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officers in there somewhere) 4 Sentinels
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14 Chimeras (To carry the
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Guardsmen)
4 Valkyrie Transports (To carry the 40
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Storm Troopers) 6 Commissars
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6mm tanks are not uncool.
Specialist Game Focus : EPIC
Nothing is cooler than 6mm scale Land Raiders. Not even Tony Stark.
let’s ask, ‘what armies are available?’
Multiple army lists are available for each army type, so that a ‘Steel Legion’ army list (Mechanized infantry in chimeras with many tank types as backup) will look very different to a Baran Siegemasters (Low-tech Siege army with trenchworks and static gun platforms) army list, even though they’re ostensibly the same army type (Imperial Guard). This is an approach that GW has flirted with Warhammer 40,000 over the years, but has never been able to achieve.
Here’s a brief listing:
Space Marines (Both Codex Marines and
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a whole swathe of variant Chapter army lists)
Imperial Guard (Steel Legion, Cadians,
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Death Korps of Krieg, Elysian Drop Troopers, Baran Siegemasters, etc..) Orks (Ork Waaghs, Feral Orks, Gargant
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Bigmobs, etc...)
Chaos Space Marines (The Black Legion,
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Red Corsairs, World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, etc...)
Chaos Lost & The Damned
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Eldar (Pretty much every craftworld you
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can think of has an army list)
Tau (Currently only a ‘generic’ army list is
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available, but more Septs will doubtless come online in time)
Adeptus Mechanicus Titan Legion &
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Skitarii Army
Inquisitorial army (Including awesome
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6mm Grey Knight models from Forgeworld)
let’s ask, ‘what’s missinG?’
Sadly, there are still a couple of armies not readily available at Epic scale.
Dark Eldar
Games Workshop doesn’t currently have the resources available to have a team dedicated to expanding the Epic range.
However, the Tyranids were available during Epic’s 2nd and 3rd editions and a determined Epic player can source an army from Ebay (Albeit at a premium). Likewise a few Necron models were released by GW in the ancient mists of time, and Ebay is again your friend.
Both the Dark Eldar and the Necrons are featured in the Epic : Raiders supplement book, which is available alongside this issue of Firebase. I suggest you read it as it’s 130 pages of awesome, and it’ll tell you in-depth the easiest ways to proxy / obtain good Dark Eldar and Necron models.
let’s ask, ‘so what’s the best way to Get started
If you decide to dip your foot in the Epic ocean, I recommend you download the Epic rulebook... you’ll find that if you put together a typical 3000pt army list, it’ll tend to cost around £80 (It’s an oft-repeated fact that a company and a half of Epic Marines costs less £££ than a single tactical squad for 40k... and in Epic they’re worth 1500pts!).
Anyways, I don’t recommend you buy a whole army all at once. Probably the best way to check if you’re likely to enjoy playing Epic is to buy a £12 plastic infantry boxed set. Either a Marine, Chaos/L&TD, Imperial Guard, Eldar or Ork boxed set will give you hundreds of models (The £12 Ork boxed set contains 244 greenskins of various types I believe, for example) and a good variety of unit types to have a few playtest games with your mates at small points values, say
around 1000pts (Equivalent to playing a 500pt game of 40k before jumping in and buying a full 1500pt army).
If you enjoy it, grab yourself a Thunderhawk Gunship, or some Titans, or a whatever else takes your fancy, and discover the full tactical complexity of Epic.
If you don’t enjoy it, flog the box on Ebay, there are plenty of people out there who’ll want your 6mm warriors.
Personally, I kickstarted Epic in my area two